Black Unicorn, Tanith Lee [famous ebook reader txt] 📗

Up on the platform, the chariots halted. On the other sidefrom the square the ocean burned blue a hundred feet below, and the rest was sky, with one tiny smut of cloud.

The Prince left his chariot. They all dismounted.

The Prince went out alone into the middle of the platform.He turned to the ocean and raised his arms, and the thousands in the square were dumb, and farther off, the other crowds along the streets. It was so still Tanaquil heard the clink of golden discsupon the tamers’ leashes. She seemed to hear the clockwork ticking in the bowing unicorn’s neck.

Zorander lowered his arms. He stood in his dramatic loneli ness at the center of the platform, and in the still and time-stopped sunlight, the unicorn came to him from the sea.

There must be a way up from the platform’s other side, andthe creature had been led to it. Well-trained, it made the ascent itself. It trotted towards Zorander, and the crowd murmured, easily, like people pleasantly asleep.

The unicorn was a fake. It was a slim white horse with opalsplaited into mane and tail, and held to its forehead by a harness of white straps, probably invisible from below, was a silver horn.

It came right up to Zorander and the Prince laid one hand onits brow, beneath the horn. The charming fake nodded. And thenit kneeled, in the way of a clever theatre horse, and lowering itshead, touched the feet of the Prince sweetly, once, twice, withthe horn.

The crowd broke into cheers and applause, laughter andwhistles. They must know, most of them, this creature was not aunicorn, only the symbol. Yet they were thrilled, overjoyed atthe successful rite.

Under the noise, behind her, Tanaquil heard the noble Oppitmumble, “Look at that cloud—how curious.”

Whoever else looked, Tanaquil did. It was the cloud she hadnoted before over the sea. It was not so small now, and it had risen swiftly up the sky, blown by a hot, moist wind that waslifting all at once from the ocean, fluttering the silks of the Prince’s courtiers, the mane of the kneeling horned horse.

The cloud had a shape. It was like a long thin hand, withoutstretched reaching fingers. It was very dark. There were no other clouds.

Bells and discs rang in the wind. The bright day faded a little.

“Not a good omen,” said Oppit.

This time, he was not contradicted.

People in the crowd were pointing at the sky. There was a swell of altered noise, urgent and unhappy.The horned horse got to its feet and shook its mane. It glanced about, flaring its nostrils.

Tanaquil watched the cloud like a hand blow up the sky, andher hair lashed her face, and Lizra’s hair coiled and flew about under the diadem, and the robes of the Prince; the sharkskin beat like wings.

“It’s reaching for the sun,” breathed Lizra.

Fingers of cloud stretched over the sun’s orb, and the wholehand closed on it. The sun disappeared. A curtain of darkness fellfrom the air.

There were cries out of the crowd, vague far-off rumbles andscreams along the avenues.

“Fools,” said Gasb’s harsh voice. “It’s only weather.”

Nails of rain drove down. The rain was hot and salt.

The horned horse tossed its head, it rolled its eyes andneighed. The Prince stepped slowly back from it, dignified and remote, and two handlers scrambled up on the platform, seizingthe horse by its harness, pulling it to one side.

The cloud did not pass. The darkness mysteriously thick ened. The city seemed inside a shadow-jar. Beyond, the sky wasblue and clear . . .

And then, from the hidden ramp, up from the sea, the unicorn came a second time. And now it was as real as the coming of the darkness.

It stood on the platform, a thing of ebony, blazed with light.And in the shadow, the horn was a white lightning.

Now a dreadful silence smothered the crowd. There were only the gusts of the wind, the chinking of objects, the tapping of the nails of rain.

Then the trained horse kicked and plunged, and struck itsfake horn against the platform, and the fake snapped off and clattered away.

The unicorn turned to see. The unicorn moved. It was only

like a horse as a hilt is like a sword. It lifted its forehoof, poiseddainty, like a figurine. And then it pawed the ground, the carpet. It pawed out purple dust, then purple fire. The carpet burst intoflame, and the unicorn reared up. No, not like a horse. It was atower, and the horn swept across heaven. The sky must crack andfall— And in the square the crowd pushed, roaring, against itself,fighting to be gone.

“Oh,” said Lizra.

Prince Zorander had picked up the skirts of his robe; thesharkskin head slipped sideways from his own. He cantered. Hethrust aside his soldiers and blundered into the royal chariot. Hisface was no longer cool and distant. It was a stupid face thatseemed to have no bones. “Away!” he yelled.

The charioteer faltered. “The people, your Highness—”“Use your whip on them. Ride them down. You—” to thesoldiers—“kill that beast.”

The square was, remarkably, already clearing. The crowd, the procession, had forced back in panic not only into the ave nue, but also between buildings, and through alleys and gardens on all sides of the square. Herds of people poured over walls,shinned up trees, and dropped away.

Zorander’s chariot churned forward.

The soldiers armed their bows.

The black unicorn descended, and as it regained its four feet,a howl of arrow-bolts crashed against it.

The bolts struck the unicorn. They skidded on its blackness,and streaks of fire resulted, and the bolts sheered away, theysplintered like brittle twigs. All about the unicorn the bolts lay,and in its mane and tail they hung like evil flowers.

All the world was running now.

Tanaquil and Lizra clutched each other and were knocked down as one. Armored feet jumped over them, lightly bruisedthem, wheels missed them by inches; heavy silk and ornaments ofgold slapped their faces. They covered their heads sobbing andcursing with fright and astonishment, until the stampede hadgone by and left them there, like flotsam on the beach.

They sat up, white-faced, and